EIGHTEENTH ANNUAL REPOET 



SECUETAHY 



BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



To the Senate and House of Representatives of the Common- 

 wealth of Massachusetts. 



The past year has been one of the most remarkable for its 

 meteorological characteristics within the memory of men. The 

 winter was ushered in with a temperature almost as mild as 

 May. No snow covered the ground for weeks, while several 

 varieties of wild-flowers were gathered in the open air in many 

 parts of the North. It was practicable to plough the ground 

 till the very last of January, with the violets growing in shel- 

 tered nooks, and the weather eight degrees warmer through the 

 month than it had been known for nearly fifty years. In some 

 parts of New England the willows blossomed as early as the otli 

 of February, the pyriis Japonica in our gardens was ready to 

 open its scarlet flowers at the same time, while, after the mid- 

 dle of the month, potatoes were dug in this State uninjured by 

 the frost. The little snow that fell in March soon vanished, and 

 April was like May. It had been a winter of rare mildness, fol- 

 lowed by a spring earlier than had been known for many years, 

 with the exception, perhaps, of that of 1865, a spring succeeding 

 a season of severe drouorht. 



